[Editor’s Note: This is a republished post from Physician on FIRE, a member of The White Coat Investor Network. The original post ran here, but if you missed it the first time, it’s new to you! This one is about why he made the change from working to buy more stuff to working to buy more time. Enjoy!]You’ve heard it before. “Time is Money.” The phrase appeared a few years back in Benjamin Franklin’s Advice to a Young Tradesman, Written by an Old One. That’s probably not the first time the phrase was uttered, and it certainly wasn’t the last.
The concept is simple. Wasting time wastes money. If you can accomplish or produce twice as much in the same amount of time, you can double your earnings. If it takes you twice as long as it takes the next guy to accomplish or produce a thing, you’re not going to make as much money.
Reworking the Equation
If time = money, it would seem that the reciprocal should also be true, that money = time.
I never looked at it that way until recently, though. For me, the equation was always money = stuff. Stuff I could buy! Stuff I needed, stuff I wanted, and stuff that looked cool.
When I finished residency at age 30, I had been more or less living paycheck to paycheck. I had even taken out a loan for a little extra spending money when the moonlighting opportunity I was counting on vanished. Immediately upon graduating, I worked a one-week locum tenens job and was able to pay that loan off with a week’s pay.
Hail, locums! I was able to pay for a couple years of extra stuff in just 7 days. The equation was upgraded to 2.0: work = money = stuff.
In fairness to the younger me, I had a lot of stuff to buy back then. I also spent money on things like experiences, which is generally thought to give us more lasting happiness than stuff.
But back to the stuff. I worked enough to buy a plot of land on the water. Then, built a 4,000 square foot home to house my family and all the stuff you need to fill all three floors you get when you build a 4,000 square foot house.
Babies came along. More stuff. We bought a boat. Needed boating stuff. Went to an auction and came home with a cabin. The cabin needed cabin stuff.
Throughout most of those years, I was on call every third night with no post-call day off. I worked every third weekend, but picked up extra weekends that nobody else was willing to work. I wanted the work, because work = money = stuff and I had a voracious appetite for stuff!
Eventually, we ended up moving all our stuff to another home and then another home. Packing and unpacking is never fun, but it’s even less fun when you have too much stuff.
Enough with the Stuff!
I could easily take this post in the direction of promoting minimalism, but I’m too much of a maximalist to be taken seriously. I’ll admit to being a bit jealous of this guy, who unloaded a boatload of belongings in one fell swoop. I don’t know if I could rip off the Band-Aid so quickly, but we do keep a dedicated donation box or two in our bedroom and it fills up quickly. #taxdeduction
The direction I am going should be obvious from the title and introductory paragraphs. I have little need for more stuff. Occasionally something needs to be replaced, but I generally have much more stuff than I need, which makes holiday gift requests challenging. The boys sometimes need stuff, and they get more than they need. Enough with the stuff.
What I appreciate now more than stuff is… you guessed it, Time!
- Time with family
- Time to exercise
- Time to travel
- Time to read
- Time to brew beer
- Time to keep up with my website
- Time to switch the laundry, be right back*
How can money buy time? The main mechanism is by accelerating the time to an early retirement, which will free up an incredible amount of time. Once my stated monetary goals have been reached, I can be free of my day/night job if I so choose.
Money Can Buy Time
How else can money = time?
- Hire a babysitter and spend alone time with your loved one.
- Hire someone to maintain your lawn (I kind of enjoy it, but I’ll hire my boys when they’re old enough).
- Hire all sorts of tasks, like house painting, cleaning… you name it.
- Buy healthier food to eat and live a longer, healthier life.
- Fly rather than drive.
- Pay for TSA Pre-check to avoid the long security lines.
- Buy a newer, faster computer and spend less time waiting and rebooting.
- Take a taxi/Uber instead of public transportation.
Some of these suggestions go against my frugal nature, but if I truly value time, money can be traded to free up time, as long as good health remains with me.
Once upon a time, additional dollars were earmarked for one particular want or need. That’s no longer the case. I’ve got the things I need, and more than I want. Every dollar that gets thrown into the kitty buys me time.
And time is a wonderful thing.
*A test to see if my wife actually reads my posts. When she looks up from her laptop and says “Yeah, like you actually do laundry!” then I’ll know. [Update: She did. And laughed. Mission accomplished.]
What do you value more, money or time? Do you have enough of both? Or neither? Please share your thoughts below.
I valued stuff from kindergarten to age forty. After I realized about half my life was over, I shifted to valuing time over stuff. Now I’m 53, solidly in the third and final act, and I don’t buy much of anything.
I pay a lot of taxes, pay mortgages on the main home and retirement home, fund retirement, pay other taxes property, Medicare and Social self employment and social security, fund kids college funds, buy food/fuel for the family, house and cars, pay car, house, life and disability insurances, pay for private school tuition, and family trips. I am not sure how we spend the rest, but cell phones for six, entertainment, dining out, clothes, car maintenance and repairs, snow and lawn care, and intermittent upgrades to the retirement home must add up…
I would like to trade some money for time, so I will be selling the main home, paying off the retirement home, and downsizing our life.
I plan for no mortgage and a lower tax bill.
Time = Money? How about Time to do as you please = Happiness?
Based on that equation, I’m a bit short on happiness at present, but can see the finish line.
So, if time=money
and time=happiness
does money=happiness?
obviously not, but money can definitely buy you time which can bring you happiness.
I recently decreased my workload and now have more free time. Yes, I make less money but I am healthier and happier. The only reason I was able to do that is because I saved a lot of money (a lot for us at least.) I can afford to work less. For me, money bought us happiness.
Great post POF
I had the same sort of experience, though for me, I had found that I wasn’t really enjoying clinical practice anymore, and decided not to try and go part time, but to go for a job in academia instead. We now make a lot less money than we could be making, but what price do you put on happiness? On a professor’s salary, it’s not like we are just scraping by, we just have to make sure that we’re not frivilous with our money. I now LOVE my job, and don’t dread going in to work anymore.
PoF, this was another excellent post I hadn’t read before. Thanks!
Not sure if it was on this site or another (or whom for that matter), Went along the lines: ‘Money can’t buy love, but it can decrease misery’
Yes, money=happiness, but only if you use the money to buy time. As soon as you convert the money to something other than time the relationship no longer holds. =)
Great post. After 2 years of residency I think that I certainly value time more than money. (Then again I have only experienced a residents salary, so we’ll see). I would love to have my loans paid off and be comfortable, but most importantly I want ample time to exercise and take care of my health. I also want ample time to spend with my wife and future kids. How long did it take you to realize you didn’t want any more stuff and preferred more time? Here’s to FI!
It’s tough when you’re a resident and you don’t have much time or money. I agree that staying fit in an excellent investment of your time, and I wish I practiced that as much as I preach.
Best,
-PoF
Could not agree more. Did it all, big house, lost 200k when sold, cabin, stuff for both. Have worked very hard lately on cutting spending. But I took a shared shuttle from Ohare to downtown Chicago this weekend which cost $67.00 RT because didn’t want to spend $100 RT for cab/Uber. One way trip took 1.5 hours. Huge waste of my time for $33 savings. I used to take subway but not safe where I get off. I will never do that again.
Thanks, DK!
I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Boston has a free bus that goes directly from the airport to Seaport area where my hotel for #ANES17 is located. The Silver Line turned out to be a great option, and I was able to borrow a bike for the weekend to get to and from the conference and around town. Saves time compared to the conference shuttle, and gets me some exercise.
Cheers!
-PoF
The problem I have is determining what my time is worth now. For example, I mow my own lawn, which might be viewed as an unreasonable use of my time. But it saves money, which compounds and, if spent, represents a significant opportunity cost of time in the future. It’s a balancing act. Need some time today, which costs money. But FI as early as possible is also ideal in that it gives you years of time. I think it’s about trying to find that sweet spot that fits with your personal goals/philosophy.
Yup, balance is key. Moderation in all things.
https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/moderation-in-all-things/
Right, I think about this quite a bit. It is very difficult to find an exact $/hour that you value your time and equally as difficult to enforce it. I have realized it changes day to day depending on how I feel and it is also difficult to predict the $/hr of a lot of tasks in your life. The easiest part is to say I am not going to work extra at my day job or similar unless I make X $/hr (and that value should increase over time as you become more financially independent), but it becomes much more difficult to say I am not going to do X tasks in my daily life because I can pay someone else to do them less than I value my own time (or I can go work for X $/hr and then use that money to pay someone else less per hour to do it).
Where I sit currently is that I think it is best to just do as much as you can on your own as it will keep you humble, Paying other people to do everything for you is a recipe for disaster if you ever find yourself in a position where you no longer can afford it.
There is a definite satisfaction to accomplishing a task that is not financially driven. For example, tending a yard, or a garden, gives one the ability to perform a personally useful task. There’s the benefit of physical activity, the accomplishment of a physical endeavor, and the chance to practice mindfulness. The option to be present and engaged in an activity can directly lead to improved happiness.
Enjoy the journey, its a one way trip! Each person has to determine what “value” is to themselves and those that depend on them. Don’t miss the roses, because you were too cheap. But find value in the things you really want = happiness! Sometimes your wrong and your spouse is RIGHT. I agree, money can buy you more TIME, if that’s what you VALUE.
Money buying time has always been an illusion. It’s scheduling different activities instead of buying more stuff.
A minimalist pre-planned schedule doing thing you enjoy is the closest anyone gets to “having more time”.
When I was in debt, I valued money more than time. After I was debt free, I valued time more than money. I think the burden of debt was making me want to work more to earn and pay it off. After I was debt free, I had the courage to drop some things in my practice that I didn’t like without the fear it would drop my income. With no debt, I didn’t fear a drop in income. I could take more time off without worry.
I think having or not having a big house payment to make each month influences this question. The story of Dr. Britney Morehouse in my book, The Doctors Guide to Eliminating Debt illustrates this nicely. In that example, I translated the money required to pay off her $600,000 mortgage into the equivalent number of patients she would need to see. She would need to see almost 43,000 patients just to pay off the 30 year mortgage on her house. Without the house payment, what could she do with all that time she would not need to see patients?
As we age, I think this also swings more toward valuing time.
Dr. Cory S. Fawcett
Prescription for Financial Success
Especially when you adjust that # of patients for overhead, taxes, and maybe even tithing!